Most of what Envision Charlotte does is implement energy-saving mechanisms and systems throughout the city, but some of the work simply involves studying and theorizing how to best approach these applications. To do that, UNC Charlotte Professor Rob Cox and his students in the William States Lee College of Engineering test and investigate data taken from devices around campus, the city, and even places as far away as Florida. Cox and his classes are an integral part of what Envision hopes to do for many years: act as an academic and municipal hub transforming the way cities think about energy use. Politico Magazine visited one of Cox’s classes to see how they’re helping Charlotte embody a new phase of sustainability practices.
In this photo, Professor Rob Cox, left, speaks to his students and Ben Futrell, a lecturer in the UNC Charlotte School of Architecture, in the mechanical room of the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center on the campus of UNCC. Cox is reviewing building systems, looking at chilled water distribution throughout the building.

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A complicated system of cooling coils helps manage the water distribution in the building’s ducts. Pressure gauges and thermometers help Cox and his students determine the differential between the temperature coming in and going out. “The temperature going in and temperature going out should have a particular difference between the two,” he says. If the difference is wrong, Cox notes, energy usage won’t be efficient. “A lot of the energy wasting problems you have are very subtle and hard to find. Things might not be functioning optimally, but you wouldn’t know it unless you look at this very detailed piece of information.”

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Cox works with a variable frequency drive (VFD), a device that controls his office building’s motor operations efficiently. Here he works with the settings on a chilled water pump. Operating the systems manually has its risks, he says: “It’s sort of like controlling your car by hitting the gas pedal and controlling the speed with the brake.” Allowing a VFD to do the work is like letting the car cruise naturally via an accelerator. “You don’t have to go full bore and then pull back,” he adds.

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One of Envision Charlotte’s primary goals is to reduce the city’s waste. Cox and his students have begun installing ultrasonic sensors that measure how full the city’s dumpsters are. “A big part of what we’re trying to do with Envision is data-driven change. We’re trying to understand across the Envision Charlotte portfolio how much waste is being produced by these buildings annually,” Cox says, noting that the city hopes to reduce waste usage by 20 percent. “Part of what Envision seeks to be is a living lab for these technologies that should drive more sustainable operations,” he says.

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After reviewing operations in mechanical rooms on campus and across the city, Cox and his students will pore over data that indicates how different energy-saving programs actually perform. Recently, the class has studied comparisons between simulation data and real measured data for a building they’re investigating in Florida. In this photo, Cox explains air temperature measurements over a day-long period. “We’re trying to figure out what is and isn’t efficient,” Cox says.

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In a classroom on campus, Cox and lecturer Ben Futrell show students how to absorb data on the ground. “It’s valuable for them to be able to see the real systems in action, to be able to understand what it is you’d talk about in an otherwise abstract manner. It’s easy to say to them, ‘The temperature difference should be this,' but then you can go out there and see that,” Cox says.

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A hallmark of Envision Charlotte’s methodology is reducing light usage in Uptown office buildings. Janitorial staffs are instructed to work one floor at a time, leaving a building mostly dark as only the rooms being cleaned are lit. The result: an expansive downtown area with only a few horizontal strips of light visible at any time.